Refused announce first album in 17 years

It’s been a big year for alternative rock reunions, with Sleater-Kinney, Desaparecidos, Faith No More, Blur and genre forebearers The Sonics each releasing new records. Now you can add Swedish punk rock group Refused to that list.

The band has announced that they will release Freedom on Epitaph Records on June 30. Freedom will be the band’s first album in 17 years and will be the followup to their seminal 1998 album The Shape of Punk to Come. The band famously imploded shortly after releasing Shape, and reunited for a tour in 2012 which they initially claimed would be their last. They announced a second reunion late last year, which was later expanded from a handful of festival dates to a world tour and seven dates in August opening for Faith No More.

The first cut from the album is “Elektra,” which you can listen to below. Curiously, Billboard notes that the song was co-written by Shellback, the Swedish hitmaker best known for his work with Taylor Swift and Britney Spears. The song doesn’t have any of the hallmark’s of Shellback’s most famous credits, and his work with Refused brings him back to his harder roots, as he played in various indie rock and death metal bands for finding fame as a songwriter.

Ryan Gibbs is the music editor for The Young Folks. He is based in Newport, Rhode Island.